Tuesday, 23 May 2017

New Technology is Revolutionizing the Building Design Process

In the past, working with an architect was like buying a pig in a poke you really could not see what the thing was going to look like, until after you already owned it. But in just the past few years this situation has changed remarkably! Thanks to the increased power and information storage capacity of new computers, architects can create the building designs in three dimensions and produce photorealistic views of the interior and exterior that everyone (and not just individuals with graduate degrees in architecture) can understand. This is called Building Information Modeling or “BIM” for short.

Not only can the new technology produce beautiful, realistic views of what the architecture is going to look like, it allows the building’s structure and insulation to be tested as if the building had already been built. In a time when the need to create energy efficient buildings is greater than ever, this added feature to the design process is helping architects design buildings that are more efficient in their use of energy but only slightly more expensive to build. Thanks to energy grants that currently exist, the payback period to add these energy innovations is often as little at 3 years—the equivalent of earning 33% on your investment!

After that period the lowered operating costs puts money in the pockets of the owners every month. If energy prices rise over time as many expect, the value of this design process will only accelerate. This is an exciting time to be an architect because of the amazing technologies that are being invented to help us design and build more beautiful and sustainable buildings but it is perhaps an even better time to be an architectural client. In the past, client involvement was largely limited to setting a general wish list of spaces and paying the construction bills because the architectural documents were often too technical to be easily understood. Now the client can be a much more active partner in creating a beautiful and value oriented design, which can be both fun and profitable! Not every architect is employing this advanced technology yet, so ask you, architect, if they are using “BIM!”Perhaps the most widespread BIM program in use to today is REVIT. source: https://goodhomeids.net